Flamebound (21 page)

“It kills me that I can't shelter you from that. That I can only stand by and watch as you live through being raped, beaten, stabbed, strangled, burned. I can't stop it, can't protect you from any of it. Hell, the fact that you're with me actually makes it worse.”

His words slice right through the last of my anger, have me resting my head on his shoulder and rubbing my hand up his own leg in a gesture meant to comfort. Because I don't know what it's like for him, not really, but I can imagine how hellish it would be if I had to watch him suffer the way he's been forced to watch me.

“And yet I can't let you go, either. I've tried. I've tried so many times to walk away from you for your own safety. But I just can't do it. I love you too fucking much. I know it's selfish and—”

“Stop the car,” I tell him for the second time in ten minutes.

“What?”

“I said, stop the car.”

“Are you freaking kidding me? I'm pouring my heart out to you and you want to walk away from me?”

“Just pull the car over, Declan.”

“Fine. Whatever.” His jaw hard as granite, he once again pulls onto the shoulder. “Go do whatever you want to do.”

I scoot over the gear shift, slide into his lap. “What I want to do, what I
need
to do, is this.” I wrap my arms around him and lower my lips to his.

For a second, he seems shell-shocked. Like it's the last thing he ever expected me to do. But then he grabs onto me as though I'm the only lifeline he's got left, one hand clenching in my hair while the other clenches on my hip. And then he devours me.

Minutes later, he raises his head. I moan in protest and he licks gently over my lips in an effort to soothe and comfort. “If your family weren't waiting for us on the other end of this drive, I would say screw it and take you right here for the sheer pleasure of watching you come. But we need to go.”

Beautiful man. Sweet man, though I know he'd balk at the description. “We do need to go. But I need to tell you something first.”

His eyes, those beautiful, beautiful eyes, turn wary from one blink to the next. “Yes?”

“I love you, too. I love you so much that it scares me deep inside, because if anything ever happened to you, I don't know how I'd survive.”

“Xandra—”

“Wait. I'm not done.” I press gentle kisses on his forehead, his eyes, his mouth. “And if you ever try to walk away from me for my own good, you better be prepared. Because I will chase you to the ends of the fucking earth. You're not getting rid of me that easily.”

A deep, painful shudder wracks him at my words. Then he grabs my upper arms, like he's preparing to shake some sense into me, and I brace myself.

For long seconds, nothing happens and I know he's struggling with the rage of emotions inside him. Time stretches, elongates, until I hear only his harsh breathing and the frantic beating of my own heart. Then, just when I've decided to take matters into my own hands again, he slides his right hand over my bicep and shoulder to my neck.

He rests his hand on my chest, brushes his fingers gently over the hollow of my throat. It's a gesture filled with tenderness, with need, with love—one that shows me his vulnerabilities even as it highlights my own and it heats my blood now just as it did then.

I bring my own hands up to cup his face, brush my lips gently against his own. He groans, a sound of desire and torment and fury, then buries his face in the curve of my neck and just breathes—harsh, ragged sounds that at any other time would be painful to hear. But right here, right now, they're absolutely perfect.

“W
here is he?” I demand the second my sister Willow opens the door to my parents' house. “Where's Dad?'

“In his and Mom's bedroom.” She steps aside to let Declan and me in. I try to ignore how worried she looks, how drained, but I can't. She's always been the wild one, the one full of life and laughter. But right now, she just looks sad. That scares me more than my mother's phone call did, more than the thoughts that chased themselves around my head on the long drive here. “He's sleeping, so everyone but Rachael and Mom is in the kitchen. Come on back with me. I'll make you some coffee.”

I ignore her invitation as I head for the stairs. I'm not going to wake him up, but I need to see my father with my own eyes, need to prove to myself that he's okay. Or, if not okay, at least alive. Yes, I think as I take the steps two at a time—Declan right at my heels—for now alive will do very nicely.

But when I get to the wing that is my parents' private quarters in the royal residence, there are four guards blocking the way—two I recognize as part of my father's regular security detail, but the others I've never seen before. And when one of them steps in front of me, as if he intends to block my path, I lift a hand, keep it at the ready. My command of Heka might be rudimentary at best, but if this guy thinks he's going to keep me from my father, then he'd better be ready to throw down. Because that so isn't happening.

Declan puts a soothing hand on the small of my back, even as his other comes up to rest atop mine and guide it back down to my side. Normally I'd be pissed at him for interfering, but the fact of the matter is he's right to step in. I'm not exactly firing on all cylinders right now.

Jared, my father's head of security, steps between the new guards and me. He's been with my family almost as long as I've been alive and is like an uncle to me.

“It's okay,” he tells them. “This is Xandra.” But even he looks wary, on alert, and for the first time, I realize the guards aren't focused on me at all. Declan's the one who has all their attention.

“He's with me.” Figuring that's the end of it, I brush past them and start down the hall to my parents' bedroom. But I get only a few feet before I realize that Declan isn't following me. Jared and the others have closed ranks and are preventing him from passing the spot where they are stationed.

“What's going on?” I demand, retracing my steps. “I said he's with me.”

“I'm sorry, Xan, but your mother issued strict orders that he's not to be allowed past this point.”

“That's ridiculous!”

A quick glance at Declan's narrowed eyes shows he doesn't appreciate the situation. But he doesn't argue with my father's security. Though I know he's jonesing to teach them some manners, all he does is step back, hands raised in the universal gesture of acquiescence.

“Go check on your father,” he tells me. “I'll just head down to the kitchen for some of that coffee your sister was talking about.”

Love for him wells up inside me. How typical of Declan to put his own annoyance aside and focus on what I need. A part of me wants to tell the whole group of them to go to hell, but short of dragging my mother away from my dad's sickbed and having her change her orders, there's nothing I can do or say that is going to convince Jared and the others to let Declan through. In this house, in this town, the queen's wishes are all but law.

Still, it's just another annoyance, another insult, that I am determined to call her on when my dad is better. Much as I love her, she's always making it more and more intolerable for me to be her daughter.

“I'll only be a few minutes,” I say. “I just want to see him.”

“Take as long as you need.”

I nod, then turn to Jared. “You're being deliberately awful,” I hiss at him. “There's no reason for this and you know it.”

For once, his face doesn't soften as he turns to walk me down the hall. “That man is dangerous, Xandra. To you and everyone else around him. I can't believe you don't see that.”

“Do you really think this is the time for us to get in a debate over my choice of lovers?” I don't even try to keep the anger out of my voice.

“Maybe not, but even without your mother's order, there was no way I was letting that man get within a hundred feet of your father when he can't defend himself.”

“Prejudiced much?”

“It's not prejudice if it's justified. I've known Declan Chumomisto a long while, and if there's one thing time has proven, it's that he will use whoever he needs to get what he wants.”

It's not the first time I've heard that accusation—Donovan threw it at me weeks ago when he was convinced Declan was the serial killer stalking Austin and me. It probably won't be the last time, either.

But I'll be damned if I sit by and take it, not when I spend most of our time together feeling like I'm using him. And not when he's just told me that he loves me. “And you think he's using me?”

“I didn't say that, darlin'. But my philosophy is ‘forewarned is forearmed.'”

We're at my parents' door now, whispering furiously since neither one of us wants to give an inch on this. In the end, I have to because I know I'm not going to be able to change his mind today and I don't have the time to stand around arguing. Not when my father might be slipping away with every moment that passes.

Shooting Jared a we'll-finish-this-later look, I knock softly on the closed door, and then turn the knob without waiting for my mother or sister to answer. I don't want to take them away from any healing they might be doing.

But when I walk in, my mom is sitting by the bed, her head in her hands. She turns to look when I come in, and I'm shocked by how terrible she appears. And how old. Usually, my mother is one of those witches who never leaves her room, let alone the house, with a hair out of place. All part and parcel of being queen, she tells me—usually as she's encouraging me to change out of my jeans into a more tailored ensemble. Just one more reason I'm thrilled Donovan is the one who will inherit the throne instead of me.

“Xandra!” she exclaims, jumping up and rushing across the room to me. As she gets closer, I realize she's crying, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy while tears slide silently down her cheeks.

Terror rips through me. It's one thing for me to get a phone call telling me that my father is in bad shape. It's another thing altogether to watch my indomitable mother shatter into a thousand pieces. For the first time, I allow myself to wonder not
when
my father will get better, but
if
he will.

“Thank the goddess you're here!” my mother says as she all but throws herself into my arms.

I return her hug warily, looking around the room for anything that could be a trap. I know I sound heartless and overly suspicious, but my mother has a way of turning any situation to her advantage. And if she thinks my father's illness can somehow be used to make me a better witch, I have no doubt that she'll try to use it. That's just how she's wired.

But the pale, shaky woman currently holding on to me as if I'm the only thing keeping her from drowning doesn't feel like she has a mercenary bone in her body. She feels fragile and on the edge of collapse.

I glance over at Rachael who hasn't moved from where she's standing by Dad's bed, her hand resting over his heart as she pours into him as much healing energy as she can manage. I can feel it crackling in the air, the charge that always infuses with the world around her when she uses her gift.

She meets my eyes for a second and answers my unasked question with a small shake of her head. Damn. No improvement. But hopefully the head shake also means he's not getting worse. I'll take bad but stable over bad and worsening any day of the week.

Wrapping an arm around my mother's waist, I guide her back to her chair at the head of my father's bed. Once she's seated, I lean in and give Rachael a one-armed hug. Then immediately wish I hadn't.

She's burning up, her attempt at healing our father taking every ounce of energy she has and then some. It's a normal by-product of extreme magic usage and normally wouldn't upset me at all. But the last person I was around whose body ran hot like that was Kyle. And even though I tell myself I'm being ridiculous, that I'm safe at home with Declan and my family, for a moment I'm thrust right back into those endless minutes when I was completely at his mercy.

I take a few deep breaths and do my best to ignore the part of me that wants to curl into a ball until the memories fade away. Lily swears that the only way I'll learn to deal with them is to get to the point where I accept them, refuse to let them hurt me anymore. But I don't have the time to deal with them right now and this isn't the place anyway. It's never been the place to deal with any of my problems.

“Have we figured out what's wrong?” I finally ask, my throat husky with fear and pain and unshed tears.

“His body's shutting down, one system at a time.” My mother's voice breaks and she leans over until her head rests on my father's leg.

“Why isn't he in the hospital then?” I demand as visions rip through me of my father's heart and lungs and kidneys failing. “He needs to be monitored, needs—”

“It's magical, not biological.” Rachael speaks for the first time. “I am doing the same thing for him that the human machines could. Doing it better, actually.”

“Where is Aunt Tsura?” I ask. “I thought she'd be here by now.”

“She's due in any minute,” my mother says. “Once she's here, she'll figure out what's going on. She'll find a way to stop it.”

I hope so. Because seeing my powerful, dynamic father like this—so still and gray and silent—has my stomach tying itself into knots.

Settling myself into the chair next to my mother's, I reach for my father's hand, squeeze it tightly. I feel a little like Alice down the rabbit hole, like everything I know, everything I understand about the world, has turned upside down overnight.

I'd planned to take my mother to task for her ridiculous decree about Declan—the sooner she understands that we're together, really together, the better—but I can't say a word to this silent, shaken woman sitting beside me. My indomitable mother looks as if one more thing, no matter how small, will break her into a million pieces.

I'm not sure how long I sit there, holding my father's hand and praying to the goddess to make him better. It seems like both an eternity and the blink of an eye, though I know the truth falls somewhere in between.

Suddenly, my mother stiffens beside me. “She's here,” she says, and there's so much hope in those two words that it almost breaks my heart. Seconds later, my aunt comes striding into the room, exuding strength and power.

Tsura is identical to my mother—long black hair, golden skin, green eyes, tall, slender build. And yet they look nothing alike. Where my mother wears tailored clothes befitting a queen and always has her hair twisted into a neat chignon at the nape of her neck, my aunt looks like every Hollywood movie's idea of the quintessential sexy witch. Her hair tumbles wildly down her back, her nails are long and painted the same bright red as her lips and she's dressed all in black. Tight black skirt, sexy, low-cut black shirt, fancy black cowboy boots. Even her jewelry—of which there is a lot—is embedded with black stones. Obsidian, onyx and black sapphires sparkle in the light whenever she moves.

Though I have six aunts—my mother is also the seventh daughter—Tsura has always been my favorite. When I was young, she was my playmate and, now that I'm older, she is often the only one, besides Donovan, who stands with me against my mother. Not that I can't stand up to her alone—I have, many times. But some days it's nice to know there's someone else in your corner. Of course, the flip side of that is she uses her position for evil, as well—meaning she comes down on my mother's side almost as often as she comes down on mine.

My mom reaches for her sister with a shattered cry, and Tsura all but leaps the last few yards to envelop my mother in what I know is a jasmine-and-vanilla-scented hug. “It's okay, Alia,” she murmurs softly. “Everything's going to be just fine.”

Tsura holds my mother for long seconds, swaying with her in an instinctive need to comfort. But her eyes are already on my father, one hand outstretched to him as she pours healing power into him.

I know the second it hits him, because Rachael draws back like she's been burned. And in a way, she has been. I've been the recipient of Tsura's power more than once, and while I've been thankful for it every time, never has it been a particularly pleasant experience. There's just too much of it; it's just too overwhelming and all-encompassing to be mistaken for anything but the invasion it is. Whereas Rachael's gift is gentle, soothing, Tsura's is like an eighteen-wheeler plowing through every defense you've got.

But in this moment, I'm glad for that. Because if anyone can help my father—if anyone can ferret out what's causing this—it's my aunt.

Tsura gives my mother another minute or so, and then gently pulls away and walks to my father's bedside. She runs a hand over my shoulder in silent greeting, does the same to Rachael. And then all her focus, all her magic, becomes centered on my father.

“Leave us,” she tells Rachael and me. Then, “Alia, go stand on his other side. Hold his hand but do nothing else until I tell you.”

Reluctantly, Rachael and I slip out. I close the door behind us, then turn to find my sister slumped against the wall. Now that she's out of the darkened room, and away from Mom and Dad, I see how drained she really is. In fact, she's so gray and drawn-looking that I'm not sure she'll make it to her room in the adjacent wing under her own power.